NBA fans are reading between the lines after LeBron James made some pointed comments about modern offense on the Mind The Game podcast. On the surface, LeBron was talking basketball theory. Dig a little deeper, though, and plenty of people think his words carried a subtle message aimed at his own teammate, Luka Doncic.
“We didn’t have this many defenses and nuances of how to play defense versus ISO players back, I would say, five to seven years ago.”
“Now, you know, there’s so many different ways to get the ball out of a guy’s hands if he’s just sitting there ISO on the wing. You can flood the whole side and bring another guy to the elbow. You could literally run a guy and just go trap them, and now you got three defenders. You got the guy that’s guarding the ball, the guy that came over to trap them, and you have the sideline.”
“So there’s so many different ways, and in our game of pace and space and rhythm, it throws you out of rhythm. You kind of want the ball popping, or you want the trigger to happen either by the pass or by a pick and roll. You have a dynamic pick-and-roll player that can attract two on the ball. Now you’re playing a four-on-three game. You’re playing a numbers game.”
“That’s the game right now. It’s the numbers game. How can you start the blender? Is the blender being started by the pass? Is it pass and cut? Is it what the Miami Heat are doing, or is it what the Lakers are doing, where we start a lot of our plays with pick and roll because we have such a dynamic pick and roll player in Luka?”
“So the trigger, how do you create the blender? How do you create the trigger? Creating a trigger used to be where guys catch the ball at the elbow, or in the Karl Malone area, catch it, and face up and jab and jab. You needed a little bit of that. But that is definitely on the lower side of that pie chart now. It is not a big piece of the demographic of winning basketball. I don’t see it.”
This is new territory for LeBron. For over two decades, he has been the engine. Now, he’s playing more off the ball, spacing the floor, cutting, and picking his spots. He has openly said he enjoys that role and is comfortable letting Luka run the show. At the same time, he made it clear he can still take over ball-handling duties if needed.
Fans hear that balance and wonder if it’s really balance at all.
Luka’s production is undeniable. He’s averaging 33.7 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 8.7 assists, numbers that put him firmly in MVP conversations. But there’s a flip side. He’s also averaging 4.5 turnovers per game, the highest mark in the league. Earlier this season, he was criticized for dominating the ball too much and slowing offensive flow, with stretches where possessions stalled into late-clock hero shots.
That context makes LeBron’s comments feel less theoretical and more pointed. When he talks about the ball ‘popping,’ about rhythm, about avoiding stagnant wing isolations, fans hear a critique of how often the offense lives and dies with Luka’s dribble.
It’s not hard to see why this is resonating now. The Los Angeles Lakers are 22–11, good enough for the third seed, but the underlying numbers are strange. They have a zero-point differential despite owning the fourth-best record in the league. They win close games, go undefeated in clutch situations, but get blown out when things go wrong. That profile screams ‘good, not dominant.’
So are LeBron’s comments shots at Luka? Probably not in a personal sense. LeBron has always talked about basketball this way, and he’s too calculated to publicly undermine a teammate. But it’s fair to say there was a message baked in. The Lakers need flow, not just brilliance. They need movement, not just control.
Whether Luka hears that as advice or criticism might matter a lot as the season goes on.
